Couldn't Care Less
by Lila2
Summary: Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love
1. Blair Waldorf

**Title: **"Couldn't Care Less (Or Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love)"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Fandom:** "Gossip Girl," "Nikita," "Friday Night Lights," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Glee"

**Character/Pairing:** Blair Waldorf, Nikita, Lyla Garrity, Elena Gilbert, Quinn Fabray

**Spoiler:** all aired episodes

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary: **Everyone is a fool for love.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

**Author's Note:** Writer's Block is a bitch, but rather than force myself to work through a huge, long piece, I've selected smaller pieces inspired by the same theme: five fandoms, five female characters I adore. Due to 's restrictions on categories, I'll be posting a fic every day or so and changing the category to fit the genre and fandom. Title and cuts courtesy of The Cardigans. Enjoy.

* * *

**I. My heart can't carry much more. It's really, really aching and sore.**

Blair Waldorf lies.

She says them once and she says them again but she knows it doesn't matter how many times she says the words – they'll never be true.

The first time, she can literally feel it happening, the pressure pushing on her eyelids from the effort it takes to ensure her eyes match her mouth, the words slicing her tongue into ribbons as they spill from between her lips: _"I don't love you anymore."_

He doesn't say a word, but his cheeks go taunt and his eyes glisten and without moving a muscle he recoils as if he's been slapped.

The weight in her chest eases and she can breathe again, fingers trembling around the soft velvet encasing the only thing she's ever wanted in this life. A diamond is forever, but true love was supposed to be too. She can't have one without the other.

_"Your world will be easier if I didn't come back,"_ he whispers, the words catching in his mouth and she knows without looking at him how hard it is for him to say them. He's never been able to love someone else without putting himself first. Even she wasn't enough to change that.

She doesn't say goodbye when she walks away, lighter than she's felt in four months, but heavier still. She no longer aches all over, even if her heart does. She has her freedom; she always knew it would come at a price.

"B?" Serena asks as they collapse in a cab. "What did he say to you?"

She shakes her head, tells herself the blurriness in her eyes are the flashing lights rather than the tears she refuses to cry for Chuck Bass.

"He doesn't love me anymore," she whispers, her words strangled, and she winces because she was the one to let him go. He's not supposed to control her any longer.

"Oh, B," Serena croons. "You know it's not true. He wants what's best for you even if that means he's with someone else."

Blair smiles and blinks her eyes, washes away the tears the way she claims to have cleansed herself of ChuckandBlair.

She doesn't tell Serena the truth: it's not what he said; it's what she didn't say that matters.

She loves him even though it will destroy her.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	2. Nikita

**Title: **"Couldn't Care Less (Or Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love)"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Fandom:** "Gossip Girl," "Nikita," "Friday Night Lights," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Glee"

**Character/Pairing:** Blair Waldorf, Lyla Garrity, Elena Gilbert, Quinn Fabray

**Spoiler:** all aired episodes

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary: **Everyone is a fool for love.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

**Author's Note: **Writer's Block is a bitch, but rather than force myself to work through a huge, long piece, I've selected smaller pieces inspired by the same theme: five fandoms, five female characters I adore. Title and cuts courtesy of The Cardigans. Enjoy.

* * *

**II. Your face don't look like before. It's really not like yours anymore.**

Nikita hesitates.

She's spent half the night in four inch heels and she can barely walk, teetering on the edge of failure as she tries to navigate broken concrete in stilettos.

Amanda might regard her as one of her best protégés but this life was never quite hers. Her feet ache, a sharp pain shooting through the arch of her foot to the long, lean line of her calf, and she sucks back the wince and tightens her fingers around her gun.

Three years on the run have taken the girl out of Division, but she knows Division has never quite left her. She can feel Amanda in the folds of her dress, Birkhoff in constant chatter streaming from her Bluetooth, Percy in the grim determination that holds her arm straight and keeps her trigger finger tight. And Michael…

Three years on the run and Michael's never left her.

_"Safety on, toss it behind you. Don't turn around." _His voice is deeper than she remembers, wearier too, but she still acts on instinct. She tosses the gun aside like he instructs and holds her hands high.

Three years on the run and a shiver still works its way down her spine from the heat of his eyes on her.

_"You were free. You had gotten out. You were gone. What the hell are you doing back here?"_

There's anger in his voice this time, angry, bitter grief, and she can hear the words he's not saying louder than the ones echoing through the alley: _You left me; you broke me; why are you ripping me open again?_

Three years on the run and she can't come this far without seeing him.

He's older, lines on his face and bags beneath his eyes, but it's the hardness in them that makes her breath clutch in her chest.

It hurts more than the life Percy took from her or the heart Roan snapped into a million pieces when he took the only thing that ever mattered to her.

She knows how this has to end. Three years on the run and it's all she's lived for. She knows how it has to end but she can't do it.

Daniel might have been the love of her life, but Michael was always caught between them.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	3. Lyla Garrity

**Title: **"Couldn't Care Less (Or Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love)"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Fandom:** "Gossip Girl," "Nikita," "Friday Night Lights," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Glee"

**Character/Pairing:** Blair Waldorf, Nikita, Lyla Garrity, Elena Gilbert, Quinn Fabray

**Spoiler:** all aired episodes

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary: **Everyone is a fool for love.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

**Author's Note:** Writer's Block is a bitch, but rather than force myself to work through a huge, long piece, I've selected smaller pieces inspired by the same theme: five fandoms, five female characters I adore. One new fandom each day. Title and cuts courtesy of The Cardigans. Enjoy.

* * *

**III. Your eyes don't like me no more. They quiver and they shift to the floor.**

Lyla Garrity dreams.

It's Mexico, again, white dresses and pale margaritas and hot, blistering sun bearing down on her shoulders with the weight of a thousand mistakes.

The water isn't cold but it's deep and she's tired – she's losing the fight. Her limbs won't move and her lungs won't flutter and her heart is a weak thump in her breast.

She can see the sun, a harsh glare against her fading vision, and she knows she should try; she knows she has to fight; she knows it's too much.

She wakes with a gasp, Tim curled beside her, his heat burning through her like the midday sun. She shivers and it has nothing to do with being cold.

She climbs from the bed like she climbed from the water, exhausted and terrified, and slips outside. It's October and chilly, cold, wet dirt beneath her bare feet, and the moon is a glowing white orb in the sky.

When she squints just right the stars burn her eyes and the dirt feels gritty against her skin, moisture oozing between her toes.

Her white night shirt catches in the breeze and when she closes her eyes she can feel their whispers against the wind, Notre Dame and Texas Forever and all the broken promises that shattered along with Jason's back.

She opens her eyes and the Texas plains stretch before her, empty and endless as the open sea, but she pushes away the thoughts. She can't change Mexico anymore than she can change that night. The past is the past, but she's no longer that girl.

_"What do you want?" _she'd asked Tim, forced out the words because she needed to know who he loved: the Lyla she was or the Lyla she is.

_"You,"_ he'd said, eyes averted, but love coming off him in waves.

_"What else do you want?"_

"_You."_

She tried to make Jason her everything once and almost lost herself. She's not that strong; she can't carry the weight of Tim's love and keep her own intact.

She's always known what she wanted: Jason, respect, freedom, forgiveness.

Jason doesn't love her but he doesn't hate her and Dillon is a blip in her rearview mirror. She might always be a whore with a website, but she's so much more.

She wants Tim to see her, really see her, everything she is and everything she was and everything she could be. Tim sees the girl she was at sixteen; Tim _loves_ the girl she was at sixteen; Tim will never see past the girl she was at sixteen.

There's a noise behind her and she hears him before she sees him, hears him say her name like a prayer: _Lyla_. Her eyes close at the sound of his voice.

"You okay?" he asks and runs a hand down her cheek, fingers grazing her skin with so much tenderness her eyes water. "It's freezing out here. Let me keep you warm."

He wraps her in his arms and she melts into him, tears drying against the heated skin of his bare chest, lets him hold her up even though what she needs is to take care of herself.

She keeps her eyes closed while Texas Forever drifts across her vision. Tim tells her about his plans for the future. She thinks of the past.

* * *

~ * ~  
Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	4. Elena Gilbert

**Title:** "Couldn't Care Less (Or Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love)"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Fandom:** "Gossip Girl," "Nikita," "Friday Night Lights," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Glee"

**Character/Pairing:** Blair Waldorf, Nikita, Lyla Garrity, Elena Gilbert, Quinn Fabray

**Spoiler:** all aired episodes

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary:** Everyone is a fool for love.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

**Author's Note:** And it goes on….this time, from Elena's perspective. Thank you to everyone for the terrific feedback. Enjoy.

* * *

**IV. My heart don't beat like before. It's never been this slow.**

Elena Gilbert pretends.

There's a hole in her hand and it should hurt, but she can't remember to feel pain because Stefan's tongue is moving across her palm in wide, wet circles and all she wants to do is throw her head back and moan.

She knows this is a bad idea. She knows this is wrong. She knows this will end terribly.

She can't bring herself to care.

Her parents are dead and her brother died before her eyes and she's saved Damon's life twice; she can't lose Stefan too.

She sees his face that afternoon, rain-slicked hair blocking her vision, and she knew in her heart that he wasn't dead, but there were burns on his wrists and gashes on his chest and he might have been alive but he wasn't whole.

She tells herself this time is different. She tells herself they're more prepared. She tells herself this will work.

She can't bring herself to believe any differently.

Her blood is inside him, flowing through his veins and filling them with power, strength, what he needs to fight Katherine, Mason Lockwood, even his own brother.

She's never felt closer to him, more connected, and she reaches up to stroke the veins pressing against the skin of his cheeks and feels him smile against her palm. She's never loved him more.

She tells herself she wants this. She tells herself she needs this. She tells herself there's no other way.

She can't bring herself to admit the truth: when this ends, Stefan will go on living even if she doesn't.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


	5. Quinn Fabray

**Title:** "Couldn't Care Less (Or Five Times a Smart Girl Does Something Stupid for Love)"

**Author:** Lila

**Rating:** PG-13

**Fandom:** "Gossip Girl," "Nikita," "Friday Night Lights," "The Vampire Diaries," and "Glee"

**Character/Pairing:** Blair Waldorf, Nikita, Lyla Garrity, Elena Gilbert, Quinn Fabray

**Spoiler:** all aired episode

**Length:** one-shot

**Summary:** Everyone is a fool for love.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs

**Author's Note:** It's done. Thank you to all who've supported this fic. Enjoy.

* * *

**V. Your back's not straight like before. You really shouldn't carry me no more.**

Quinn Fabray cries.

She cries during the day and she cries at night. She cries sitting still and she cries when she's running, endless laps around the track, each beat of her foot against the asphalt atonement for another mistake.

She comes home dripping and sunburned and even though the place is enormous and only houses two people, it feels too small, the weight of what's missing crowding in every spare nook and cranny.

She steps into the shower and turns the water up high, hot and scalding, and slides to the floor, burying her head between her knees, resting a hand against her empty belly. Doing the right thing was never supposed to be this hard.

She can't sleep at night.

She closes her eyes and she sees her. She opens her eyes and sees her. No matter what she does, she sees her.

There's a noise at her window and she opens it to see him.

His eyes are brown (like hers) and fringed with long lashes (like hers) and even as he crawls into her bedroom she has to look away. Her arms feel hollow as she slips them awkwardly to her sides.

He doesn't say a word as he takes her in his arms, everything he feels raw and gaping through the dark bruises of his eyes.

_"Did you love me?"_ she'd asked him, because through it all she was a good Christian girl and refused to relinquish that one last tie to her dreams: sex was supposed to mean something, even when it was a mistake.

_"Yes, especially now,"_ he told her then and he tells her now as his hands skim over the hem of her tank top. He touches her like she's tiny and fragile; the touches her the way he held their daughter.

She pulls him closer and his chest brushes hers. Her arms fill with the wide width of his shoulders. He pulls away and lets go, hands skimming her sides as he slips to his knees.

He gazes up at her as his fingers tighten on the waistband of her pajama bottoms and she doesn't resist as they slide down her hips.

She knows she should stop. This is where it happened then; this is where it will happen now; this is where it could happen again.

His mouth presses against the flat length of her belly and she sucks in a breath but she doesn't cry.

She looks into his eyes, brown and long-lashed, and she sees herself.

* * *

Writers live for feedback – please leave some if you have the time.


End file.
